Ambiguity in announcements needs to be cleared as it leaves more questions than answers.
Mumbai: The state government is more than eager to pat its own back claiming to have kept its word on the farm loan waiver. The ministers and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders are not missing even a single opportunity to claim the credit, and tell the farmers that it is the MVA government, that is their savior.
But the main question is that, would the farmers be really benefited? The lacunae in the claim starts with the number of farmers claimed to be the beneficiaries. The government has issued a list of 1.53 crore farmers. This number is 17 lakh more than the one declared by the previous government. The MVA leaders, before coming to power had assured to clear the 7/12 extract of farmers in the state. Apparently, they were confident of not coming to power.
Now the situation has changed and the same leaders are now preaching the benefits of self-reliance to farmers rather than loan waivers. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and the brain behind MVA, Sharad Pawar dramatically changed his position, the moment it was clear that MVA will form the government in the state.
While the government has been firm on its decision of loan waiver, the actions does not resonate the feeling. The MVA leaders wanted to clear 7/12 extract, are now tight lipped about it. Because, it is practically impossible to clear all the liabilities from the 7/12 extract. The government had to issue 2 Government Resolution’s (GR), for one and the same decision in last three months. One was to announce the scheme and the other, appealing the banks to cooperate.
Going by the data only 34 lakh out of 1.53 crore farmers have completed the online registration process. It is just 21 percent of the total farmers. It means, only 21 percent of farmers in the state will avail farm loans? It appears that the government has made the announcement of total amount of Rs 15,000 crore needed for farm loan waiver and total number of farmers to be alive at the moment, ahead of Budget Session. Government needs to explain why the number of beneficiary farmers increased by 15,000 only.
The government has only announced the list of beneficiaries. How then were the certificates distributed in advance to the farmers, when will the funds be transferred to farmers’ accounts. There are many loop holes in the process, which government needs to plug and answer lot of questions also.
